The Emerging and Development of Sociology in Vietnam: An Overview

Sociology, as a discipline, is relatively nascent in Vietnam. This article seeks to provide an overview of the evolution and establishment of sociology in Vietnam, examining its trajectory both prior to and following the Vietnam War through the analysis of secondary sources. The war resulted in a bifurcation of Vietnam into the South and the North, each governed by distinct political ideologies, which significantly influenced the emergence of sociology within the nation. In the South, where a pro-Western regime prevailed, sociology flourished, bolstered by scholars educated in Western institutions. Conversely, in the North, under a socialist regime, sociology was regarded as a subversive field, as characterized by Bourdieu, and thus faced considerable resistance. After the war, Vietnamese sociology encountered a fate akin to that of its Chinese counterpart, experiencing a period of prohibition. It was not until the significant contributions of Francois Houtart, a sociologist from Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, that sociology began to re-establish itself in Vietnam.